Witness to Occupy

The light is beginning to leave the sky as a protest goes on in
one of the many banks that contributed to the financial collapse
of 2008. Roughly made, cardboard cut-out picket signs, held up by
hairy, hairless and army-sleeved arms alike, poke up in various
parts of the massive crowd, and chants fill the room as if on
cue. The joys of freedom of speech are in the air.

Two twenty-something men known as Kenneth and Ramirez step up to
the wide window of the bank, dirty and stinking. Kenneth has a
forty concealed in a small paper bag, half empty. Ramirez holds a
custom Swisher Sweet swelled to abnormal size with marijuana.
They both could get tickets for drinking and smoking in public,
but don't consider this.

"Now what are we doing today Kenneth," Ramirez says, and puts two
gloved hands up on the glass. The blunt pokes from his lips.

Kenneth shrugs. The paper bag crinkles as he drinks some beer.
"Don't know. The real question is though, what are we doing
here?"

"Watching these people do a lot of nothing for nothing, it looks
like."

"Yeah, well, things get fixed from the streets man, so what else
they gonna do? You get enough push on the streets and then
Congress is pressured to act on legislation."

"Yeah, but a lot of the higher-ups don't want that and want to
keep the power consolidated in the top one percent of the
country, and in turn control the money, which they can use to
lobby government officials to enact the type of legislation that
they want."

Kenneth nods and slurps some more beer. "The one percent that you
speak about, many of them work in corporations and such and
thrive off less regulation. It allows them to get away with
getting as much money as they can from an entity with corrupt
means without getting arrested. Maybe a bad thing ethically and
morally but in that world it's about the paper man. They get
insane bonuses that they don't need. Tear companies apart and
fire everyone and resell them at a profit."

Ramirez nods and turns to Kenneth. "Very true. Most of the people
protesting in this bank are likely Democrats and as you can see
they're all pretty young as well. Like in their twenties and
early thirties. They feel that too much money is concentrated in
the top percentile with the multi-millionaires and billionaires
and because these people can lobby and influence legislators-you
know, congressmen and such-they can make sure that the disparity
between the richest and the poorest of the country remains.

"So for the poor that means there's no ladder to climb to become
middle class and for the middle class it means that they may one
day become poor. Those two financial tiers make less and less
while the rich make more and more. The middle class family can no
longer have a decent income with their current job and lose the
American Dream. The poor, well…pretty much fucked."

"Yeah, fucked is right brother," Kenneth says, his eyes still
looking through window of the bank. He puts his beer down. "The
higher ups really think they know it all, like us small people
don't know anything. You know what I think though? I think
sometimes the smaller people are more open to learn. A lot of the
ones on top choose not to know. Or are just inoculated to such an
extent that the right information just can't get through."

"New regulation standards have been passed, which is a start
Kenneth, as far as improving things. Now people need to get
educated for the better jobs. And we need more jobs back here in
the United States. The rich need to pay more in taxes, and yeah,
the bums need to try harder to find a job. Figure it out. Don't
care how hard it is."

Both men have their hands on the glass, identical expressions of
sadness on their face.

Kenneth sighed. "You know man, sometimes I think we know more
than the ones that run all of this."

Ramirez bursts into laughter and claps Kenneth on the back and
they turn and walk away. "No offense Kenneth, but that sounds
pretty ridiculous man."